With the creation of Phantom Wings's CSS Organizer program, I decided to compose this guide for anyone that wants to use custom portraits with their custom CSS.
1: Create a new folder onto the hard drive (preferably the Desktop), and place the files, SSBarc.exe and ntcompress.exe into it.
2: Create your new CSS with CSS Organizer and save it into the folder with SSBarc.exe.
3: Use CUPASH to create your custom common5.pac.
4: Open up common5.pac with SmashBox.
5: With common5.pac opened up, go inside the archive, sc_selcharacter_en. There's an archive, called, char_bust_tex_lz77. Export that archive onto the folder with SSBarc.exe and name it 002.pac.
6: Open up Command Prompt.exe and head to the folder that's containing SSBarc.exe
7: Place 002.pac into sc_selcharacter_en.pac by inputting the code below:
SSBarc.exe sc_selcharacter_en.pac -i 002.pac
OR
SSBBinsert.exe sc_selcharacter_en.pac -i 002.pac
8: Compress the file, sc_selcharacter_en.pac with the code below:
9: You should now have your own PAC file that contains your custom portraits and custom CSS. Finish up by moving sc_selcharacter.pac onto the set directory below:
10: Turn on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, activate your File Replacement code, and you're all set.
Final Notes
1: When using sc_selcharacter.pac, the file, common5.pac, is not used for some reason.
2: Don't place too many custom portraits onto sc_selcharacter.pac. Just like with common5.pac, freezing is likely to occur when you're using too many custom portraits; biggest problems are likely to happen with Zelda, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, PKMN Trainer, Charizard, Squirtle, and Ivysaur portraits. From what I've witnessed, more than 135 portraits can lead to freezing issues, and that excludes the characters that I just mentioned.
3: Depending on the format of your custom CSS, you may need the CSS Fix code.
4: This does operate properly with the File Replacement v2.1a code. It also works with File Patch Code v3.5.1, as stated by various users from Smashboards.com.
5: So far, this only works with NTSC Wiis. This can't be done with PAL Wiis, due to the fact that the latest File Replacement code for PAL always crashes with the custom portraits.
I hope that this guide will come in handy for anyone.
As many people may have probably guessed, whenever you extract Yoshi's texture parts, you'll also get a CLR0 file that apparently affects what his egg would look like when you use his shield.
Anyway, this file is called FitYoshi00EggGuard.CLR0, and I'm not too sure about how the people that edited Yoshi were able to alter the appearance of his egg. I do know that the file affects Yoshi's egg shield in some way since his only indexed texture (Yoshi_Egg) hardly does anything to the egg.
It took me a few months, but I have finally released my texture mega pack for anyone that wants to get hold of certain textures.
What's inside the mega pack? * The texture mega pack contains at least 1 texture for every character, including Giga Bowser and Wario-Man. * Each texture has its own portrait files (except for Giga Bowser and Wario-Man). However, you need to use CUPASH to convert the portrait files. * Most textures are team battle friendly, but that's not always the case for Pokemon Trainer. * Many of these textures came from Stack Smash, Kitty Corp., and other various sources.
Notes regarding the mega pack * Certain characters will contain more than one texture that uses a specific texture slot. In that type of dilemma, only one of those textures can be used at a time. This is true even for any textures that aren't used in team battles. * None of the textures in the mega pack are mine, but I did make modifications to a portion of the textures. * Default textures remain unedited. * There are no textures for Mr. G&W since his only texture file (FitGameWatch00) contains all 6 of his color slots. * Jigglypuff's sleep hat texture (FitPurin02) remains unedited since there are reports of the game freezing if that texture is replaced.
Download * The download uses around 159 MB: Download
How to use the download * You need to first install the Homebrew Channel onto your Wii. * Get hold of the Homebrew application, Gecko OS. * Get hold of Phantom Wings's file replacement code. I use the File Replacement v2.1a code.
I hope that you'll enjoy what this mega pack has to offer since it took me a long time to set it all up.
I've checked out a few of these Emerald Textures that are used for the dark characters in the Subspace Emissary, and decided to compose a bit of a guide for them.
Characters with Emerald Textures
This is a list of characters that have an Emerald Texture.
Mario
Donkey Kong
Link
Samus
Yoshi
Kirby
Fox
Pikachu
Luigi
Captain Falcon
Ness
Peach
Bowser
Zelda
Sheik
Ice Climbers
Marth
Mr. Game & Watch
Falco
Ganondorf
Meta Knight
Pit
Wario (WarioWare)
Ike
Pokemon Trainer
Charizard
Squirtle
Ivysaur
Diddy Kong
Lucas
King Dedede
Olimar
Lucario
R.O.B.
Solid Snake
The other characters, which are Jigglypuff, Giga Bowser, Wario (Plumber outfit), Wario-Man, Zero Suit Samus, Toon Link, Wolf, and Sonic, do not have an Emerald Texture at all.
Texture Parts
Emerald textures contain the texture parts, ##edge and ##edge2. The texture part, ##edge, basically affects the entire body of the Emerald Texture, while ##edge2 seems to affect which parts of the body will have a white reflection.
Kirby has an edge3 texture part, which apparently gives his body a swirly appearance, as shown here.
Final Smashes
Some Emerald Textures will cause the game to freeze if you try to execute a certain character's Final Smash.
For one example, Yoshi's Emerald Texture lacks the texture part containing his wings. The game WILL freeze if you try to execute his Final Smash. However, there is a way to counter this dilemma.
For characters like Mario, Bowser, and Captain Falcon, you can still execute their Final Smashes with no fear of having your game freeze.
Eyes
You are not able to edit the eyes when doing Emerald Textures for most characters. However, because these textures weren't exactly designed for the use of Final Smashes, the Final Smash eye textures are not affected by this dilemma.
Mr. Game & Watch
If you create an Emerald Texture for Mr. Game & Watch, it will affect all 6 of his color slots. He only has one texture file that can be edited, which is FitGameWatch00; that file alone contains his 6 textures. On a side note, his Final Smash is not affected.
Last Words
I hope this list will give new texture makers some notes if they plan on doing an Emerald Texture themselves.
When editing character textures, some texture parts may require an indexed palette. Indexed textures are textures that have either a +1 or a +2 in their file names.
Most indexed textures have to be indexed through Photoshop, especially those that use a small palette.
To index a texture in Photoshop, go to Image, then Mode, and then choose Indexed Color....
Looking at the above image, set the palette to Local (Perceptual), and then set the maximum number of colors for the texture.
Regarding transparency, all +1 textures have no transparency, so transparency has to be disabled for those textures.
For the +2 textures, however, they can have transparency. If a +2 texture has any transparent parts, enable the transparency when indexing the texture.
For any +2 texture that has transparency, fill in the transparent areas with the color magenta (#ff00ff) before indexing the texture.
On a side note, magenta represents transparency ONLY for the +2 textures. For the normal textures, you need to mess with the Alpha Channel in order to choose the spots that you want transparent.
This is a list that displays the number of textures that each character has, along with which textures require an indexed palette. Only the playable characters and one Final Smash is mentioned on this list though.